The concept of “intersectionality” and taking seriously the politics of race, gender and sexuality alongside class oppression.

The idea that it is important to pre-figure the world we are trying to create, both in our politics as well as personal relationships.

That all of the work we do on the local level in our communities is connected to a larger vision of social transformation.

"Another Politics is Possible" (APP) is the name of a NYC-based delegation to this week's US Social Forum (USSF) in Atlanta as well as the name given to a whole track of sessions (SEE BELOW) that will take place there...I hope you can come meet up with us!

Before sharing the complete list of sessions included in the APP track, I just want to say that this year's Allied Media Conference (AMC) was HOTTT! It was the AMC's first year in Detroit and, in spite of surely losing some attendance due to its proximity to the upcoming USSF, the program, people, and everything else were truly remarkable.

So you can see the AMC is stepping up it's game, right? Seriously, start making plans NOW to be at the AMC's 10th Anniversary installment next year!

Ok, ok...without further ado, here's the Another Politics is Possible Track at the USSF:

CAPSTONE SESSION (don't miss this!):------------------------------------------------------------“Another Politics is Possible: Living the Vision, from Below & to the Left”Friday (29th) 10:30am-12:30pmGeorgia Ballroom East room at the Renaissance Atlanta Hotel Downtown------------------------------------------------------------

AND the rest of the sessions:

THURSDAY, June 28----------------------

History of US Imperialism and Resistance in the Middle East/West Asia1:00pm – 3:00pmAthena room at the Atlanta Marriott DowntownSponsor: Left Turn

Wednesday, June 20, 2007

For Movement for Justice in El Barrio, the struggle for justice means fighting for the liberation of women, lesbians, people of color, gays and the transgender community. We all share a common enemy and its called neoliberalism. Neoliberalism wishes to divide us and keep us from combining our forces. We will defeat this by continuing to unite our entire community until we achieve true liberation for all. - Victor Caletre, Movement for Justice in El Barrio

Movement for Justice in El Barrio (MJB), an East Harlem-based organization composed primarily of Mexican immigrants, has been fighting gentrification in Manhattan’s “last frontier” for nearly three years now. Now 300 members strong, MJB has already made its mark on El Barrio and has begun stepping out beyond its borders to broaden the struggle. On the eve of their crucial participation at the first ever United States Social Forum, it’s time to catch up with MJB.

“Best Power-to-the-People Movement”

Their biggest victory to date, this past winter MJB members forced Steve Kessner, a multi-millionaire who owned 47 buildings in El Barrio, to sell and move out of the neighborhood. “Kessner wanted to displace immigrant families from our homes, but we instead kicked Kessner out of El Barrio,” explains member Ana Laura Merino. “We learned that if we’re united and fight together, we can win.”

The victory boosted members’ confidence and earned them the superlative of “Best Power-to-the-People Movement in NYC,” in the “2006 Best Of NYC” issue of The Village Voice. It points as well, of course, to the larger struggle that MJB continues to confront. “Since we began as an organization, our struggle has been a fight against neoliberalism,” member Oscar Dominguez explains. “Our targets: [the City’s Department of Housing Preservation and Development], the multi-national corporations, and landlords are all capitalists. We forced one powerful capitalist out named Steven Kessner. He was replaced by another capitalist, a multi-national corporation from London named Dawnay, Day Group. These are our targets. The struggle is the same. Our campaigns are against all of these. The form in which these capitalists try to gain their money is a crime against humanity.”

Beyond Gentrification, Beyond El Barrio

Through a process known as “La Consulta del Barrio,” over 800 immigrant residents of East Harlem actively participated in selecting what issue MJB will take on now in addition to its struggle against gentrification. Still in the research and consultation phase of developing a campaign around this new issue, MJB is not yet ready to announce what this struggle will be. Another factor no doubt slowing down the announcement has been this year’s struggle against anti-immigrant legislation.

In response to this legislation, MJB conducted two town hall meetings to consult and vote on El Barrio’s position on the four federal immigration bills proposed this year. Rejecting all four, members and other El Barrio residents were appalled to discover that their City Council representative, Melissa Mark-Viverito, had drafted a council-wide resolution asking the federal government to consider approving one in particular, the Security Through Regularized Immigration and a Vibrant Economy Act. The conclusion of the town hall meetings, which MJB announced in an open letter to Council Member Mark-Viverito, was that the STRIVE Act would greatly increase the militarization of the border and perpetuate the country’s “huge underclass of immigrants with tenuous legal standing at constant risk of deportation.” Drawing a page from the Zapatistas’ playbook, MJB described for the Council Member the model of direct democracy they are developing with La Consulta del Barrio, and challenged her to “mandar obedeciendo” (“to lead by obeying”).

While sadly she appears to not be listening, as a recent radio “debate” between her and MJB has made clear, there are many others who are. “It has really taken us by surprise,” admits Merino, “to know how many organizations in NYC, throughout the US, in Mexico, and even in Spain have reached out to us, wish to learn how we fight in NYC, and have offered us their support.”

MJB’s Juan Haro traveled in April to Barcelona to participate in an international gathering of organizations pursuing creative responses to urban conflict. With delegates in attendance from Argentina, Bosnia, England, Japan, and Venezuela, in addition to Spain’s of course, Haro presented the Consulta del Barrio process—its town hall meetings, community dialogues, extensive street outreach, door knocking, house meetings, and community-wide votes—as a methodology of struggle and an organizing model that fosters democratic participation throughout the community. “When other organizations contact us and want to know how we do things,” Dominguez notes, “we realize we’ve gained the trust of other people. We’ve also learned that we can fight in El Barrio and we can win.”

The Other Campaign on the Other Side

In November of last year, MJB members traveled nearly 2,000 miles to the El Paso/Ciudad Juárez border to meet with adherents to the Other Campaign, a national non-electoral, anti-capitalist movement to liberate Mexico “from below and to the left.” They participated in a dramatic border takeover and, using newly affordable media tools, presented the voices and faces of over a dozen of their members who could not make the journey, in a video created for the gathering entitled “Our Message to the Zapatistas.” “We are committed to fighting as part of the Other Campaign,” Merino insists, “until together we liberate our Mexico that we love.”

Zapatista spokesperson Subcomandante Marcos, in attendance at the border gathering, responded earlier this year with a video communication in turn, “Message from the Zapatistas.” Directed specifically to MJB, to all Mexican immigrants and the Other Campaign in New York, as well as to people of color, women, gays, lesbians, transgender, and indigenous people living here in the city, Marcos’ words are a powerful echo of MJB’s original message of sharing and solidarity. Inspired by this dialogue, members have begun now to bring their work to audiences throughout the city, actively connecting their local organizing, and the work of the Other Campaign, to all of our various struggles.

In this spirit, MJB is bringing the story to the national stage now as well, at the US Social Forum, under the banner of “Organizing Across Borders For Humanity and Against Neoliberalism: NYC Immigrants in the Zapatista Initiated ‘Other Campaign’.” Featuring four videos, including the aforementioned “Messages,” the session is ideal for people looking to learn more about the Zapatistas’ Sixth Declaration of the Lacandon Jungle and the Other Campaign. As the only workshop at the USSF pertaining directly to the Other Campaign, it could be a gathering point for Sixth Declaration adherents from across the country to meet and dialogue face-to-face.

July 18: Against Repression

With no intention of being co-opted by the Mexican government, the Zapatistas and the Other Campaign have been preparing for State repression since its founding meetings in Chiapas in 2005. Two years later, and with their predictions ringing sadly true, Other Campaign adherents from all over Mexico gathered a week-and-a-half ago in Mexico City to create a National Forum Against Repression.

MJB is working to complement the Forum’s organizing by mobilizing members of the Other Campaign living in the US, as well as Sixth Declaration adherents around the world, in echoing their national initiatives. Originally calling for a June 26 International Day of Action Against Repression and for the Liberation of All Political Prisoners in Mexico, MJB consulted with the many groups who responded to the call and they collectively decided to instead organize an international component of the July 18 “National, Regional, and Local” Day of Action proposed by the Zapatistas’ Sixth Commission to the Forum. The language of MJB’s original call, however, still applies:

From where we are, North of the Rio Bravo, we are filled with pain and rage to hear about the repression being exerted by the Mexican government on the Other Campaign. The repression began more than a year ago with the terrible events in San Salvador Atenco. As the strength of the Other Campaign grew, the repression spread to Oaxaca, Yucatan, Chiapas, San Luis Potosi and to all different parts of the country. The repression has included police brutality, torture, arbitrary detentions, the murder of two youth, and the rape of detained women. In the past few months the repression has intensified. Recently, soldiers from the federal army harassed Zapatista Delegates from the Sixth Commission, the Compañero David Vanegas was beaten and illegally jailed in Oaxaca, three members of the People’s Front for the Defense of the Land, from Atenco, were illegally sentenced to 67 years in prison, and these are not the only cases. This repression fills us with anger. That is why we propose that we unite the strength of the many struggles that make up the Other Campaign to oppose this repression and demand freedom for all political prisoners in Mexico.

In less than three years, MJB has built an effective struggle in East Harlem, given a face to the Other Campaign here in New York City, and built connections to people throughout the world struggling likewise “for humanity and against neoliberalism.” In the words of Merino, “Our community is awake now. We now know that the answer to our problems is to fight and we will win.”

Movement for Justice in El Barrio can be contacted at (212) 561-0555 or movimientoporjusticiadelbarrio@yahoo.com

Wednesday, June 13, 2007

I'm also excited to be attending the Allied Media Conference for the first time (and it will be the conference's first time in Detroit too!). So, in the interest of stalling for more time to finish a follow-up piece to last year's article on Movement for Justice in El Barrio, here's some of the stuff I'll be at in the next couple of weeks:

The Allied Media Conference, June 22-24, Detroit...Find me at Bridging the Gap: International Solidarity and Alternative Media in Mexico AND pick up a bundle of bi-lingual (spanish/english), newspaper-style editions of the Sixth Declaration of the Lacandon Jungle to give to your people back home.

The US Social Forum, June 27-July 1, Atlanta...If I'm not hanging out with kids as part of the Another Politics Is Possible Delegation, you can find me attending/presenting at these workshops I'm helping to put together:

Sunday, June 03, 2007

This came my way and I'm passing it on, reflections from a group calling themselves "Cronopios Autónomos Rebeldes"...

In the Sixth Declaration of the Lacandon Jungle, the EZLN proposed bringing about a new “Intercontinental Encounter for Humanity and Against Neoliberalism.” The preparations – a long process that will take time – have already begun. We have already celebrated the “First Encounter between the Zapatista people and the peoples of the world” in Oventic in December 2006- January 2007. The preparations for the “Intergalactic” Encounter are and will be in the hands of all of us. For that reason we think that it is necessary to involve more struggles, more movements, organizations, collectives and individuals all over the world, who have experiences of struggle and proposals that we should know about. That is why we, adherents of the Sixth Declaration and the Zezta Internazional, want to find a way to help spread the word about the call to participate in the preparations for this intergalactic encounter. We, along with many others, need to continue networking so that many struggles in our countries and in others may know about this call and be able to participate, if they are able and willing, in the preparations for this gathering.

On January 30, 2006, Insurgent Lieutenant Colonel Moisés, in the name of the Intergalactic Commission of the EZLN, said very clearly: “Let us work for and plan the core of our call to action, an anticapitalist and antineoliberal call. We welcome proposals that reflect what’s on people’s minds!” If this call to action is going to come out of the Intergalactic itself, we have to begin to build it. We need something that can serve as an instrument, to work with, to inform and to try to involve many from all over who could enrich the preparation of this Intergalactic Encounter.

Why a new Intergalactic? Is another one necessary? We know the historical significance of the first Intercontinental Encounter in July-August of 1996. Its energy and inspiration was rooted in the “Ya basta” (Enough is enough) of January 1, 1994, in the impact of the armed resistance and the path of the Zapatista struggle in its first two years of public life. This encounter crystallized, on a world level, an awakening, a shaking off of many years of disappointments and resignation. It announced the great mobilizations of the altermundistas (another world is possible) that gathered strength after Seattle, in December of 1999. From this new perspective the adversaries of neo-liberalism were now visible; neoliberalism no longer dominated without having to confront resistance from the rest of the planet.

Then came the World Social Forum, first in Porto Alegre and after that its different annual editions. With all the criticism that one might make of it, the formation of the WSF marked an important stage. It served to analyze the disasters of neoliberalism, to create consciousness that “another world is possible”. Now the World Social Forum is looking for a second wind, and no one knows if it will find it. Moreover, we may be entering a moment of reorientation of world dynamics that is no longer the neoliberalism of the 80’s and 90’s, against which the World Social Forum was fighting (but we’ll leave this for another occasion.)

In this context, another Intergalactic makes sense. But in order to be successful, it can’t repeat the Intercontinental Encounter of 1996, or the WSF. What are the new steps that could lead to another Intergalactic Encounter?

1) An anticapitalist struggle. Among the most important aspects of the Sixth Declaration, we find the expression of a clearly anticapitalist stance. To go from an anti-neoliberal to an anticapitalist one is not just a matter of vocabulary. It means to pass from the stage of awakening and resistance to a perspective of offensive attack against an entire system. It means to go beyond the ambiguities of the WSF and the altermundismo (anotherworldism): There are several tendencies in this movement, one of which denounces the excesses of neoliberalism, whole holding that it is possible to humanize capitalist globalization and control it, by means of the recovery of the nation-state.

But the way forward is not to try to domesticate global capitalism or to return (which is impossible) to the earlier phase of the capitalist system (of the so-called “welfare state”). What we reject, what oppresses us, exploits us, dehumanizes us is the capitalist system in its current form or in any new (or old) version that might come out of it. What unites and defines us is our “no” to capitalism; our consciousness that a society based on commerce, on profit and money, robs our lives and we end up dispossessed - dispossessed of our work, our time, our humanity, our sharing, and our dignity. This is for everyone, for all those who have nothing and are poorer than poor, and also those who might seem to have a little more, but who also end up losing everything in the wild gambles of a society that multiplies egoisms and egocentrisms, depressing solitude, false hopes, absence of community and of communication, loss of meaning... What’s more, capitalism is incapable of halting the destruction of the planet that it is provoking: for the first time in history, humanity’s instinct for self-preservation, in danger of disappearing, may be the best ally of the anticapitalist struggle. The anticapitalist struggle is, after all, the struggle for humanity. The struggle of those from below and to the left is at the same time the struggle for all of humanity.

This implies that the Intergalactic, besides coming up with proposals for the next steps in the fight against capitalism, has as its task to begin to make an alternative to the capitalist system believable again. An anticapitalist project does not make sense if we are not capable of asking ourselves: What kind of society do we want? Without worrying about names, without having to draw up plans and programs, we need to begin to discuss the possible organizing principles, the values of this society, by definition very Other.

2) Autonomy. The experience that gave rise to the first Intergalactic was the defiant “Ya basta” of 1994. What the Zapatistas have to offer as sustenance for the new Intergalactic is the experience of autonomy, the work of the Juntas of Good Government, since August of 2003. The Encounter of December 2006 – January 2007 made it really clear: we are not speaking in a vacuum; our reflections arise from this construction of self-governance of the rebel peoples, of their heroic successes and their daily difficulties. This is what makes it possible to imagine another Intergalactic Encounter.

It is not about reproducing what the Zapatista peoples have done; their struggle is, for several reasons, an exceptional experience. (It was an armed uprising that created the space for this autonomy and allowed it to be protected during so much time.) It is about understanding that it is possible to begin to build forms of self organization, from below, from ourselves. It’s no longer about asking the State to solve our problems; it’s not about waiting, without being able to build anything, for the day of the Revolution (identified by taking over the power of the State). It is about beginning to do now what is possible to do (first and foremost rehumanizing ourselves, de-fetishizing our heads and our lives.)

Above all, it is very important to interconnect the two points that we believe are fundamental to the inspiration that the Zapatista struggle offers: the anticapitalist perspective and the construction of autonomy. In the first place, autonomy is not only self organization; it only makes sense if it moves forward in an anticapitalist perspective, in a perspective of individual and collective freedom. In the second place, it is clear to us that autonomy cannot reach full realization while it is surrounded by the forces of the Market and exposed to the aggressions of a market economy. It is a matter of advancing, but also of posing the question: How far is it possible to go? The project of autonomy (from now on) makes sense because it is linked to an anticapitalist perspective (and at the same time because it sustains that perspective.)

3) A planetary struggle. We consider this consciousness of having a common enemy to be a legacy of the earlier phase, as is the analysis of many of its features (to be revised, however, in order to take into account recent developments.) Also the conviction that in the face of a planetary enemy we need to construct struggles, actions, planetary consciousness. We know this, but it is always useful to remember that there is no anti-capitalist outcome that is only local or national and that it cannot work with a simple solidarity among local, national or regional struggles. For this reason another Intergalactic makes sense.

But then there is the question: What has this planetary struggle been and what can it be now? This struggle is not going to be created by an Intergalactic or any other type of encounter. It has to arise out of the multiple experiences that exist in the world, among which is that of the Zapatista peoples, with the construction of autonomy. Also the experiences of the indigenous movements of all of Latin America, of those who have nothing, of those of us who are and feel ourselves to be dispossessed, deprived of a life of dignity and meaning. The first step, then, is to recognize each other in all of these differences, to listen to each other in order to be able to...

4) Build collectively. In the process of recognizing Others the image of diversity emerges as necessary for the struggle. The effort to see the other is by definition already collective, with a full collective consciousness, since it arises from the recognition of a diverse reality in action and in practice. It is not merely rational or mental comprehension, but the conjoining of the imagined with action, and with that, the possibility to move forward. It is a consciousness and, by being collective and autonomous, it is constructed, that is, it does not follow patterns or previous directions outside of the conditions of the struggle of the exploited and dispossessed, although their memory, their experience are guides that allow them to move forward.

Identity in these struggles is the identity of the ways in which people have suffered. Since the first Intergalactic Encounter we have looked for ways to come together; the idea of networking was the form in which we have made visible the planetary dimension in an antineoliberal context. Now the anticapitalist dimension pushes us over the edge, into the very heart of the problem. We need, then, a process of collective construction, starting with recognizing Others, a necessary condition for it to be collective. Listening to each other is already a way of imprinting a new character on the forms of struggle and one of the seeds of the society that we aspire to. Listening to each other has its reflexive, reciprocal, collective form. For that reason it is imperative that we open or build those spaces of recognition, not from an “in order to”, but rather from a “for the sake of,” that is, from the inner being of the social subjects, taking on the construction of this collective work, the collective word as opposed to the objectifying individualism of capitalism.

What is the nature of the exploitation, the plundering, the segregation, the oppression, the dehumanization, the destruction of vital forces in our areas, regions and villages?: Perhaps this is the concrete question out of whose diverse answers the organizing anticapitalist options can be woven, on a planetary level and from a collective effort. We can’t skip over this stage of recognition in the new Intergalactic. The 1996 Encounter called for us to build networks against neoliberalism to save humanity. Now it’s a matter of destroying capitalism, on the part of all those from below and to the left.